All three are dominant suppliers of DRAM chips, which have gone up significantly in price.
Chinese regulators have launched a probe into memory chipmakers Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, The Wall Street Journal reports. The China offices of all three companies were reportedly visited recently by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation.
The companies are dominant suppliers of DRAM, or dynamic random-access memory, chips used in smartphones and computers to store data. Office visits by Chinese investigators come as prices of the chips have soared, according to Reuters.
«China [is] trying to protect their PC and smartphone market from rising DRAM costs,» Stifel Nicolaus analyst Kevin Cassidy told Reuters. «Typically, China PC and smartphones sell at lower costs/margins than those in other countries.»
Chinese government officials have asked Samsung and SK Hynix, both headquartered in South Korea, to lower memory chip prices for top Chinese consumer electronics companies, according to The Korea Times .
